WHAT'S UP DOC? School shootings

Tuesday

Feb 20, 2018 at 10:59 AMFeb 20, 2018 at 10:59 AM

By Dr. Jeff Hersh/Daily News Correspondent

Q: How does school safety in the United States compare to other countries?

A: The U.S. spends more money on health care for children than any other country in the world, yet our childhood mortality rate is higher than any other wealthy nation. One of the larger drivers of this is gun homicides. Teens in the U.S. are over 50 times more likely to be killed by a gunshot than in other industrialized nation.

Less than one and half months into 2018 there have already been 14 shooting incidents in American elementary through high schools, and at least four others in colleges. Nineteen students were killed in these shootings, and multiple others wounded. Although it is hard to get accurate data, it is estimated that this year the entire rest of the world has had less than this number of school shootings. When we consider that the U.S. accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the disproportionate number of school shootings suffered by our children becomes evident.

The almost 300 million guns in the U.S. (89 per 100 people) make them by far more common than in any other country in the world (Yemen ranks second with less than 60 per 100 people). With mass shootings defined as a shooting incident where at least four people are wounded or killed, one third of all mass shootings in the world since 1966 have occurred in the U.S.

In addition to easy access to guns, mental health issues are a factor in the school shooting epidemic.

There is an association between challenging socioeconomic status and mental illness; ramifications of mental illness, as with many other chronic diseases, can be limiting for many people. Medicaid data illustrates this point. Medicaid covers about 14 percent of adults in the U.S., but it is the insurance for over 25 percent of all adults with serious mental illness. So clearly Medicaid is key to the provision of mental health care, as is access to healthcare insurance in general.

There are many things that can immediately be done to address the issue of school shootings:

Require and improve background checks for all gun purchases (over 80 percent of Americans support this).— This should include aggressively preventing those with serious mental illness from getting access to guns. Motivated in part by the tragedy of the Sandy Hook school shootings, a regulation to have those who are receiving care for serious mental health issues within the Social Security Administration System to be entered into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System was initiated. Unfortunately, President Trump rescinded this regulation shortly after taking office.
Address the types of guns and ammunition available (such as automatic and semiautomatic weapons, large ammunition capacity guns, armor piercing bullets and other weapons designed for warfare as opposed to personal defense or hunting), and implement other technology improvements (such as fingerprint sensitive high-tech gun locks).
Improve education, knowledge and practice of gun safety (over half of all gun-owner households with children do not lock their guns to prevent inappropriate access). All states require a written and practical test to get a driver’s license, but even requiring a license/permit to own a gun is variable between states.
Improve access to mental health care (this would also have the potential to impact the 70 percent of gun fatalities which are by suicide).—Cutting back on Medicaid will exacerbate mental health issues by taking away people’s access to health care. —A huge number of people in the U.S. who are uninsured are unable to get the mental health care they need, hence cutting back on people who are insured through the Affordable Care Act will also add to the problem.
Increase research to find other ways to address this issue. Research into automobile safety was crucial in driving down the rate of car accident fatalities, but there is a decades-old congressional legislation prohibiting any research that could ‘advocate or promote gun control.’

Our politicians are quick to send their condolences to the families of children killed in school shootings, but are unwilling to take actions to actually address the issue. In an effort to improve the safety and health of our children I ask everyone to contact their elected officials and demand they take action.